In Luke 14, Jesus is amassing great multitudes who are traveling with Him. Christ, realizing that the vast majority of the supposed “followers” were unqualified and ill-prepared, turns to them to explain that most of their lifestyles were incompatible with following Him. He explains that the cost required to go where he was leading them was great, far greater than many were willing to pay. Jesus will take you on the journey of a lifetime if you will let Him, but it will cost you. Much of what you are tempted to hold onto in a life of following Jesus is going to have to go. For years this reality has been illustrated in many different ways. Below is my attempt to do so.

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The glow of the alarm clock read 4:57. Three more minutes until the alarm would sound, but I didn’t need any alarms this morning. Like a kid on Christmas morning, I had been awake for hours waiting for an appropriate hour to get out of bed. I had been waiting for this day for years. I was finally going to meet Chris Carson (Kit) and begin our accent up Mount Telos. I had been watching his videos for years and after two years on a waiting list, my turn to join his troupe of five other climbers had come. I glanced to the corner of my room and saw the heap of supplies all strapped tightly to my pack. I wasn’t sure it would fit in the trunk of my car but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything I could bear to leave behind, after all, climbing Mt. Telos was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I turned the alarm off at first blare, jumped out of bed, and begin getting ready. Six minutes later I was ready to go, hefting my massive pack onto my shoulders. I sure hoped Kit would be impressed with all my new gear. It had cost quite a bit, but I wanted to ensure that there was nothing that I was going to regret having left behind. I wanted to be ready. I ran out the door banging my tent pole on the top of my door as my collapsible camp dishes knocked over my coffee mug sitting on the counter.

My bag didn’t quite fit in the trunk, but no matter I got it in the back seat and on the second good shove was able to get the door to click shut. I turned my key and looked down at the clock, 5:11. I was going to be way too early, but oh well I guess that just mean more time to spend with Kit before we started our climb. The closer I got the more the peak towered above me. Pictures didn’t even begin to compare. As I pulled up to the shack that functioned as our point of departure, I realized I was alone. Kit was nowhere in sight. I pried my bag from the back and prepared to make a good first impression.

After what felt like hours, my four climbing companions arrived. I noticed smugly that none of their packs were even close to the size of mine. They must have forgotten all the important stuff. Well, I certainly wouldn’t be sharing. I had everything that I needed. Kit pulled up and jumped out of his car. As he approached, I noticed him eyeing all of us up. I thought I caught a snicker forming.

“All right,” he said, “start by dumping all your stuff out so I can get a look at your gear. I need to know you are ready and bringing what you need to make it to the end” I smiled knowing that out of the five of us I certainly had what it took.

We emptied our bags as he started his inspection at the opposite end of the line where a meager pile of supplies laid. Kit dug through slowly and silently eyeing each item and begin to form two piles. I figured some gear must not have met his required standards. He repeated the process without words all down the line and then stood before me. I couldn’t help but grin, I bet I had some stuff that even the great mountain man Kit had never seen. He had to be impressed, I had even managed to squeeze in my collapsible camp oven to make a proper celebratory dinner at the peak. I bet no one had ever brought a solar-powered laptop before, but if I was going to climb Mt. Telos I was going to be sure the whole world knew about it.

His eyes went back and forth between me and my impressive mound of supplies with no words. Finally, a grin broke across his face as he said, “Son, is this some kind of joke.”

“No sir” I replied. “I come prepared, you just wait and see”

I could tell he was taken aback by my uncommon forethought. He dug through my pile and to my delight I was the only person who had only one pile in front of them.

“Okay, the pile on your left is what you are taking, the pile on the right you can leave behind. And you,” he pointed his finger at me, “I don’t know what on earth you were thinking, but you can’t take any of that crap you with. You won’t make it 50 feet without collapsing.”

Was this some sort of joke? I had been planning this for years. How could I climb the mountain without my canon, or my go pro, or my picnic blanket, and what about my 3,000-foot rope. Surely, he was mistaken. I waited for the punchline but after a few moments, it was clear none was coming. My heart dropped. How could I have been so mistaken? How could I have been thinking wrong for so long? Here I had thought there was no climber better in all the world than Kit Carson, but it turned out he was nothing but a fraud. He had no idea what he was doing. How could I have ever trusted him?

He looked at me and said, “If you want to make it up this mountain, you’ll do exactly what I say. I know what I am doing. No one has ever done this on their own. You need to leave all that behind and I’ll give you my backup gear to use. You can leave all your toys here in my shack. Reaching the end requires certain things, and you’ll have to leave everything else behind.”

I just shook my head. “Fine then,” he said, “but you aren’t going to come with me if you want to try and climb this mountain your own way with all of that junk, you’ll do it alone.”

He was right. He didn’t own this mountain. I would just go on my own. I had what I needed. Kit could do things his way and I would do them mine. The rest would depart at first light the following day. But there were still a couple hours of daytime. After the way I had been treated, I was going to set out on my own. I didn’t want to lay eyes on Kit ever again. With indignation, I gritted my teeth and begin to carefully repack the contents that Kit had so foolishly dismissed.

I hoisted my pack on my back and left quickly. I was going to show him. After a few steps, I slowed my pace. It was a long journey after all. As the sun sank, I continued on. Growing weary but still determined. As the base camp disappeared from view, I let out a sigh of relief. I could finally lighten my pack. Not much, and I didn’t need to, but I might as well be comfortable as I go. I removed half my rope, and my collapsible oven, I wouldn’t need an oven if I was cooking just for myself anyways, and stowed it behind a tree hiding it from sight so that Kit wouldn’t think he was right.

As time stretched on, my legs grew weaker. My arms ached. Every step seemed like it would be my last. My knuckles glowed white as I gripped my pack. I noticed many of the things I had strapped on seemed to have fallen away as I had gone. The path too narrow to allow the width of my belongings to traverse. I remembered Kit’s words, but what remained of my pack was too precious to let go. I marched on.

Hours went by, perhaps days, and I had lost any understanding of time. The path continued to narrow and my belongings had been stripped back to just a few. I took one more step and was tugged to a stop. Try what I may, no amount of twisting and turning would let me continue. Not with the shreds of my pack still firmly strapped to my back. If I was going to continue on. I was going to have to let it go.

Dismay filled me. I had worked so hard and come such a long way, but the cost of moving forward seemed too much to bear. One more step meant leaving everything behind. It meant admitting my failure in humiliation. I had worked too hard and too long to let go now. My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the straps that it seemed impossible to pry them away. Yet to move forward would require just that. If I was going to get where I was supposed to be, I needed to say goodbye to that which seemed impossible to relinquish. What was I going to do? The cost seemed impossible to pay.

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Now you are left with a question, “will you reach the top?” Jesus will take you on the adventure of a lifetime, but it’s going to be costly. There are things currently in your life, relationships, character traits, long-held beliefs, that your fingers are wrapped around in refusal to let go. You can cling to those things if you want to. But remember if you do, wherever you’re going, you just might be going alone.

Every Sunday we gather and sing songs to our Lord. If you are anything like the average Christian much of the time you are making noise and on occasion while singing those words you are truly worshipping. Every now and then while singing an often-sung line, something will suddenly hit me differently. It’s as though I’m hearing it for the very first time. It has nothing to do with “liking” the song. In fact, the last time it occurred it happened in a song I felt was overdone and had no strong inclination towards. We were in the midst of repeating a song that I had sung countless times in a mindless dull routine.

The Words We Sing

And the verse started,

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now is ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
From rising again

And the next verse,

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming
One day the skies with His glories will shine
Wonderful day, my Beloved One bringing
My Savior Jesus is mine  

Words Made Real

The reality of the words we were singing became very real all at once. Guys, one day we are done with all of this. And that is a fact. No more fighting our own sin, no more constant disappointment, no more struggle. One day Jesus is coming back and it isn’t as though any of you reading this do not “know” this. But there is a difference between “knowing” it and believing and living in light of it. I was left with an overwhelming feeling of hope. I was reminded that my hope, fulfillment, and joy do not need to be full now. Because my hope is not in the here and now. It isn’t found in this world. It is found in Christ and one day it will be fully recognized.  

Jesus defeated Satan, He defeated the power of death, and one day our risen Savior is coming to take us out of here. Don’t forget it. On the days you have had enough remember what will happen one day.

I was reminded of Psalm 42

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

O my God, my soul is cast down within me;
Therefore I will remember You.

Why do you let yourself think the thoughts you do? Why do you forget what is true? Do you remember what Jesus did? Do you remember what He will do? Does your life reflect that this life is not the end-all and be-all? How does your life prove that one day Jesus is coming to get you?  

Hope in God, nothing else. Remember what is true. And praise Jesus for what He has already done, and what He will one day do.

Henry was born into a world beneath the Earth’s surface void of any light. He stumbles around in pitch blackness navigating the underground tunnels entirely by touch, accustomed to collisions and falls from a lack of sight. Having grown up in this subsurface underworld, having no knowledge of surface-dwelling this individual is entirely unaware that they are missing out. Light is a foreign concept because the darkness is all he has ever known. Any rumors of light allowing something called “sight” that drift down to this subterrestrial existence that they may have heard about are entirely not understood. Henry is blind and he doesn’t even know it. 

Scripture indicates that this is not too far from reality for much of this world. Apart from Christ, our only option is to dwell in the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13). God says that not only are unbelievers living in darkness but that they actually are darkness (Ephesians 5:8). And like this fictional child, they don’t even know it. They are blind without even realizing it. They stumble through life unaware of what they are missing out on. Unbelievers are left in this condition until the light of Christ crashes into their existence and brings sight to the blind in a very real way.

Light breaking in

Eventually, a sliver of light breaks through the ceiling and shines down into the underworld and unknown sight is gained. It is foggy, blurry, and dim, but finally, a ladder leading up to the surface can be spotted. Henry doesn’t understand what is happening, but he now knows there is so much more to this world than he has ever known. So he climbs the ladder and with every step, the world gets brighter and brighter. After much squinting and pausing to allow his unaccustomed eyes to adjust to the sight he pushes his way up to the Earth’s surface.

When the light of Jesus breaks through the darkness of this world it can’t be ignored. For the first time sin is seen for what it really is. For the first time truth is seen, believed, and understood. The reality of God and the reality of our own condition can no longer be ignored because it is sitting right in front of us. The truth is not always pleasant, but we can no longer close our eyes to its presence.

A whole new world

Henry can’t believe his eyes the world is so much more than he had ever experienced before. It was beautiful. It was terrible. He never knew that this was reality. He had thought the tunnels he had spent years traversing were all there was, but it turns out there is so much more. It seemed as though everywhere he looked there was evidence that things were not right. His years in the tunnels had never shown him anything like this before. 

Before the light of Christ, we are living in ignorance. We are totally unaware that this world is broken. We have no idea of the existence of our perfect God nor the reality of our sinful condition. We are living blind to the real beauty of this world and also painfully unaware of our own condition. Living in real light changes all of that.

Is it worth it?

At times as Henry traverses this new world of light, he wishes he was still in darkness. It seems like it would have been easier to stay below the surface. He sees things he would rather not see. The reality that he can no longer avoid, is so unpleasant that he would like to close his eyes to it. He sees his reflection and he is not as attractive as he might have wished. At times he is even tempted to go through this sunny surface world with blinders in front of him. He desires to run from the light back to hide in the shadows. But he can’t. His eyes have been opened and no matter how hard he might try to close his eyes to this reality he cannot. He now has the light of the world. And the truth is, although his life is now more complicated than ever, and he can see all sorts of scary things, he wouldn’t trade it for the world, because closing his eyes to those things doesn’t make them go away. Now Henry can see real life.

Sometimes Christians don’t want to live in the light as they should. Instead, we try to slink back into darkness. The light of Jesus is too bright and we want to remove ourselves from it. It shines on us and shows all of our imperfections and we don’t like that. It would be ridiculous to close our eyes to the light once it has come into our life. If you are a Christian you are to live in the light. You cannot go back into darkness. And that light will show you just how broken this world really is. It will even show you just how broken you are. Be glad you can see it. Don’t close your eyes to it. Seeing it means you can see real life.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) Jesus is the light of the world. You don’t have to live in a world without light.

Envision that you are on a ship clinging tightly to whatever it is that you have on this earth that you treasure the most. Imagine whatever it is that you value so highly slipping out of your grasp only to fall out of reach. You lounge forward in a final futile attempt to catch hold of it, only to see it fall forever into the depths of the sea, unable to ever be retrieved again.

This is exactly the picture that John Foster uses in his book from the early 1800s entitled “The Improvement of Time.” In it, he points to another treasure that moment by moment is wasted by being dropped over the edge, but its loss is many times unnoticed. The 234-page book’s entire intent is to convince the reader not only of the value of time but to also see how easily it slips away from us, never to be seen or utilized again.

The Value of a Minute

When we are young, we are constantly given unheeded warnings on the speed and shortness of life. Usually, they passed over our heads under the assumption that the “old” men and women giving them were out of touch. But did you realize that God gives the very same warnings? 

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Psalm 90:10

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

James 4:4

In Ephesians God tells us that he has things for us to do. We are His workmanship and He has created and prepared things for us to do. We only have this life to do them. There is no second shot. There is no reset button on this journey that we are on. When we reach the end of our lives, as Christians we will give an account for the life that God has given us. I’d like to leave no task that God has prepared for me undone.

In John 9 Jesus tells us that “We must do what God has for us now while it is day for night is coming when no one can work.” We will never accomplish what God has created us for if we aimlessly drift through this life, allowing it to passively pass us by. It’s our choice to either spend ourselves on the things that matter: God, His Kingdom, and His mission, or to spend our lives on cheap thrills, comfort, and ease. But only one decision will have anything to show for it in the end.  

Minutes Easily Spent

Imagine having $40,000,000. You would likely give little thought to dollars spent here and there. Some costs are paid so gradually that the total expense paid slips away without notice. But when those small payments here and there are totaled, the sum would be staggering. When it comes to the investment of our lives, I think many of us spend them in that way; wasted, not all at once for we are far too wise to make such a mistake. Instead as fools, we spend our life savings of time on little trinkets here and there. Our time purchases nothing of great value, worth investing in, but it is spent in such small instances, that it concerns us very little.

If you are an average man or woman in the United States your life will likely consist of just over 40 million minutes. What are you going to do with them? It would be easy to excuse wasting a great deal of it, but be careful, you just might find at the end of it all you wasted more than you realized.

No Getting it Back

There is no way of getting time back, once spent it is gone for good. If time has slowly been falling out of your hands beneath the surface of the sea you cannot dive down to retrieve it. The moments were wasted. All you can do moving forward is to fight to keep more from drifting away. I don’t know how much time is left in your bank, but you have some. You have one life to live. Spend it where it counts and make it count.

So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

I wish I was smarter, and I am willing to bet that you wish you were as well. However, scripture is clear that there is a difference between being intelligent according to this world and being wise in the eyes of God. One leads to righteousness, spiritual maturity, and usefulness in God’s kingdom. The other leads to an inflated ego and eventual destruction. Scripture says, “For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.” Godly wisdom is to be sought after, while earthly wisdom is never to be trusted.

If you find yourself lacking in the necessary wisdom, the Bible has much to say about it. God’s word reveals that wisdom is found in scripture (2 Timothy 3:15). There is wisdom to be found in Godly counsel (Proverbs 11:14 & 24:6). If you are lacking wisdom James tells us to pray and ask God for it (James 1:5). Wisdom is withheld from the proud and given to the humble (Proverbs 11:2).

Another Path to Wisdom

But God tells us another way to gain wisdom. In 1 Corinthians 3:18, the apostle Paul writes, “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” Wait a minute, did God really just tell us that to be wise we must become a fool? He sure did. But don’t run off making terrible decisions just yet.

When God tells us to become a fool, He is speaking of becoming a fool to the wisdom of the world. The world would tell us it is foolish to trust and obey the Lord. The world would tell us it is insane to believe that God created this earth a mere few thousand years ago with His words. The world would tell us that to put all our hope in a “man” who came to this earth only to be killed on a cross is idiotic.

Embrace Foolishness

God says not only to embrace such truths but to display our “foolish” belief to all around us. Let’s face it, God’s ways do not always make sense to our intellect. He used trumpets to fall the walls of Jericho. He told Gideon to shrink his army from 32,000 to 300 before going into battle. He used an ox goad in the hand of Shamgar to defeat 600 Philistines. A jawbone from a donkey in the hand of Samson to defeat an entire army, and just a few loaves and fish to feed thousands of people.

1 Corinthians 1:25 says that the foolishness of God is wiser than man and the weakness of God stronger than man. God was at His most “foolish” and very “weakest” according to our limited perspective at the cross where He hung suffering and dying, but the reality was this was infinitely wiser and stronger than anything man could do. It was at the time when you and I would see God’s plan to be a complete and utter failure that He did what could easily be argued as the most miraculous, powerful, and brilliant act the Lord has ever undertaken.

An Undesirable Path

The problem is we live in an age with perhaps the strongest aversion to being seen as fools in the eyes of others. We want everyone to think highly of us. We would hate to even consider someone looking down at us.

To be a faithful Christian, obedient to God’s word, truly wise in the eyes of God, you are going to have to become a fool. You are going to have to embrace it. You’ll have to seek it. You are going to have to open your mouth and declare the gospel. And if you are really good at it, people will think you are dumb. They will think you are wrong. Will you be ashamed of believing what the Bible teaches when the world calls you a fool?

God says in Proverbs 2:2 to pursue wisdom and in 1 Corinthians 3, He tells us how to do it. If you wish to be wise in the eyes of God, you must become a fool in the eyes of the world. It seems like a fair trade to me. After all, God as Jesus Christ became a man for your sake. God, the perfect, sinless, holy, powerful, creator of the universe humbled himself and became sin on the cross for your sake. Are you willing to be a fool for Him? The funny thing is that doing so turns out to be the wisest thing you could ever do.

Christmas can be an overwhelming time. Cultural and familial pressures all around us tend to push and pull us in all directions at once. Messages are screamed at us about what to buy, where to go, and who to be with. The cultural pressure presents unrealistic expectations to please everyone and give a picture-perfect image during this season. It can lead people to feel frazzled and frantic. This feeling of being overwhelmed by these things is entirely unnecessary. There is no reason for Christians to allow our culture to push and pull us as it does, but that is not the point I want to make.

I believe that Christmas is intended by God to be overwhelming. He wants us to stand still in awe of the season. Not because we tend to give in to every whim of our culture, but because of the incredible work of our God. As Christians, we know that God in all of His glory was pleased to come to this earth as a man. We also know that He did this for us.

Easily Forgotten

The sad reality is that we all too often become numb to this truth. It isn’t that we don’t know it or believe it, but it is just that we are apathetic to it. The reality of the gospel should be overwhelming. It should leave us in awe and wonder. Being reminded of the fact that our God left the perfection and majesty of heaven to come to this fallen earth for us fallen creatures is astonishing.

Equally astonishing is that those of us who know it to be fact can let life pass us by as though it doesn’t matter. This time of year, we are far too easily overwhelmed by the necessity of the perfectly made Christmas cookie, all the while unmoved and unaffected by the gospel. Christmas is a reminder that Christ did come. If He hadn’t, we would be left with no savior and no hope for salvation. There would be no real peace and no real joy. Christ accomplished much in His coming to this world. Here are just a few such accomplishments found in the account of His birth found in the Gospel of Luke.

Peace – “To guide our feet into the way of peace” Luke 1:79

Colossians 1:20 tells us that Jesus brings us peace with God through the blood of His cross. Apart from Jesus, it is impossible for us to have peace with God. Our sins cause us to be at enmity with God. This leaves us in a constant state of turmoil between Him and us that we could never repair on our own. Jesus left heaven to mend that turmoil.

Joy – “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy” Luke 2:10

At times it seems like this world gives us very little reason to be joyful. God through Christ gives us every reason. John 15 tells us that we can be friends with Christ. Good friends make you happy. The best of friends brings real joy. Jesus says that He brings us real and abundant life. He also gives us a purpose to live for. Our Lord has come and because of that, we can have joy.  

Light – “To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” Luke 1:79

If Jesus is the light of the world as He claimed to be, that means that apart from him the entire world is living in darkness. Your options are either Christ or darkness, there is no third alternative. The light of Christ illuminates and exposes the darkness of sin, and also shines on the goodness of God. We take a light into a room to dispel the darkness. Likewise, the light of Jesus Christ had to come into this darkness of our sin to illuminate and deal with that darkness.

Salvation – “To give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins” Luke 1:77-78

The natural state of mankind is broken, fallen, dying, and headed for destruction. The only possible way to alter that trajectory is Jesus. On the first Christmas, “unto us a savior was born” which is good news for us because we were in desperate need of one. Jesus did not come for the healthy. He didn’t come to give us some moral lessons, or simply to live an example of the “good life”. He came to save souls.

Being overwhelmed is typically not a good thing. But the facts of Christ should leave us overwhelmed and in awe. The creator of the universe came to you and me. God dwelt among us, and He did it because of a love for us. Just this once, let yourself be overwhelmed.